


Five Times Kent Parson Fucked Up, And One Time He Didn't

by sysrae



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: 5 Times, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, I'm already sorry for chapter 2 but not sorry enough to not post it, Kent Parson hates himself, Kent Parson's fucked up sexual history, Kent is dyslexic, M/M, PTSD Kent, Past Abuse, Rimming, SO, Sexual Assault, So much angst, all violence in this fic is described non-graphically and takes place in the past or off-screen, allusions to sexual violence, and it's still heavy, but its presence in kent's history kind of informs his characterisation, endgame kent/ransom, mention of past noncon, overwhelmed kent, past overdose, why am i like this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-12 15:50:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9079336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sysrae/pseuds/sysrae
Summary: In which Kent Parson has a terrible sexual history, angst is established, and I am going to hell.





	1. Jack

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gayblackgeek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayblackgeek/gifts).



Jack Zimmermann isn’t the first person Kent Parson sleeps with, but he is the first to matter. He’s also the first to be gentle with him, and Kent doesn’t know what to do with that. Lukas, who had him first, made it very clear what Kent looks like to men like them, what it means and implies about his tastes, and Kent might’ve called bullshit on that assumption despite his enjoyment if not for the fact that Jack, who has him fifth, is the only one thus far to break the pattern. But then, Kent supposes, Lukas and the others were men in the legal sense, old enough to drink without the use of fake IDs at the bars where Kent snuck in and met them. Jack is a fledgling by comparison, which explains why he hasn’t yet learned to call Kent names or leave him bruised, the way he really deserves. And it’s not that the gentleness isn’t _nice_ , per se, or even that Kent always likes the rougher stuff as much as he thinks he should; it’s just that he’s supposed to be the experienced one, and it’s… confusing, on multiple levels, when Jack doesn’t act predictably. Especially when he comes so close to doing what Kent wants (expects?), then backs away again.

“C’mon,” Kent pants, gripping Jack’s hands where they grip his hips and squeezing tight, encouraging a harder hold. “C’mon, Zimms, just do it –”

“Shhh,” Jack says, kissing softly along Kent’s jaw, skating his palms up his bare flanks, back and forth, back and forth: a teasing, calloused friction. “There’s no rush today.”

Kent whines in his throat. “I know, but that’s not – unng.” He shuts his eyes, head tipped back to the sound of Jack’s laughter, muffled where he’s sucking a hickey into his throat. “Fuck, do that, do that again –”

But Jack pulls back instead, lips brushing a kiss across the bite. “ _I don’t want to hurt you_ ,” he murmurs in Quebecois, and it’s such a nonsensical statement that he’s moved his mouth to Kent’s collarbone before Kent knows how to answer.

“Bullshit,” he says – half disbelieving, half something else too complex to name. He smirks when Jack stares up at him, though, the same hot look he gets on the ice when someone sets him a challenge, and _oh_ , Kent likes the feel of it.

And just like that, the answer is obvious. Jack doesn’t know what to do here, so it’s up to Kent to teach him.

Leaning in, he grabs Jack’s belt and starts to work it, putting his mouth to Jack’s ear. “Bullshit you don’t wanna hurt me,” he murmurs. “After I outscored you today? I skated you off the ice, Zimms.” The belt clicks open under his fingers; Jack shudders as Kent uses both ends to drag him closer. “Don’t you wanna check me for that?”

“Chirp you, maybe,” Jack tries, but Kent laughs negation, nips his ear just hard enough to draw a gasp.

“Check me,” he insists. “You know you need the practice.”

He punctuates this by rutting up against Jack, the belt used mercilessly for leverage. Jack makes a frustrated noise, grabbing Kent’s shoulders just shy of hard enough. “Kenny –”

“What?” Kent teases. “Scared of a little challenge?”

Jack checks him back against the mattress, hard enough that Kent groans and arches _yes yes yes_ , mouth urging him on whenever Jack tries to go gently again. They don’t even properly fuck, but Kent still comes as hard as he thinks he ever has, and when Jack follows him over the edge, panting and shaking in the aftermath, it feels like a revelation.

It becomes a habit, after that: Kent goading Jack to give him what he needs. Not every time – Kent’s not that greedy – but on the days when he itches to be held down, hurt, and Jack’s brand of gentle won’t quite get him there.

Later, Kent wishes he could pretend he never noticed how Jack tensed up at the chirping; how he had to work harder, say worse and more, to get the same results. He’d thought Jack felt guilty for liking it, not that Kent was pushing a button Jack didn’t want pressed: the way they egged each other on in training, it hadn’t made sense that sex – that love – would somehow be any different, especially not when Kent was mostly the one on his back. When Jack finally started to argue of his own accord, it never once occurred to Kent that Jack was pushing him _away_ , and so he did what he always does when someone throws down a challenge: he went harder.

Kent went harder, and Jack broke into twenty-eight pill-sized pieces like a cold, blue Humpty-Dumpty, and it was only then, as the ambulance doors slammed shut on him, that Kent understood how right Lukas was; how right he’d always been.

_You’re greedy, Kent. You get what you deserve._

And what he deserved was to never touch Jack again.


	2. Bad Bob

“Please,” Kent says, voice shaking as he enters the sitting room. He tried so hard on the cab ride over to keep it together, but ever since Alicia let him in at the door, he hasn’t been able to stop shaking.

Bad Bob, seated in a square blue armchair, stares at Kent without standing up, his expression lanced with hurt.

“I’ll be in the dayroom,” Alicia murmurs, and leaves Kent there, the door clicking softly behind him.

“Kent Parson,” says Bad Bob, in a tone of voice that says he knows exactly what Kent has come to ask, and wishes he hadn’t. “This is unexpected.”

“Please,” Kent says again. He takes a step forward, and then another, faltering to a halt before Jack’s dad. His eyes are wet and his throat is tight, and in any other context that would be absolutely mortifying, but right here and now –  

“Please, I have to see him.”

Bad Bob sighs, tight and pained. “I’m sorry, Kent. Jack was very specific about who’d get visitation, and the centre has rules for a reason. I can’t just let you in.” He hesitates, hands flexing on the arms of the chair. “He said, ah… he wrote you letters?”

“ _Letters_ ,” Kent says, voice cracking on the word. “Yeah, I got letters, but letters are fixed, aren’t they? Letters are clean and calm and neat, and they don’t tell you shit about how long it took him to find a way to say _I loved you and I wish I hadn’t and go away_ that doesn’t use any of those words in that order, but it’s still what he’s fucking saying, isn’t it? And letters won’t answer back, they won’t –” god, he’s crying now, thin tears seeping down his cheeks, “– won’t tell you if there’s ever a way to say sorry, a way to _be_ sorry that matters to him, and I can’t – I just need to see him, okay?” He doesn’t mean it to be dramatic, but he goes to his knees in penitence as much because his strings are cut, head bowed as he shakes himself small and hunched in the shadow of Bad Bob Zimmerman. “I need to hear him say it.”

“ _Crisse,_ ” Bad Bob mutters, the word and its inflection so alien-familiar that Kent can’t help but jerk his head up, staring wide-eyed at a man who looks and sounds so very like Jack, who can actually get him in to _see_ Jack if Kent can only sway him –

“Please,” Kent says again, a soft-swallow gulp as his whole body shakes with how stupid a risk this is to take, with how some fucked-up part of him wants to take it _because_ of how much it hurts already, even before he slides both hands up Bob Zimmerman’s thighs in an unambiguous offer. “I’ll do anything. _Please_.”

Bad Bob freezes, and for a moment he looks so furious that Kent is sure he’s about to be punched for his trouble ( _break me break me like I broke him, I deserve to break, please_ ), or possibly just choked into repentance. But the hand that lands on his shoulder is neither violent nor hungry: just fixes him there, a solid weight, for long enough that he’s forced to look up into eyes that aren’t like Jack’s at all, except for the telltale trace of pain that Kent put there, because that’s what he is and does.

“Never,” Bad Bob starts, voice shaking. Stops. Squeezes Kent just that little bit harder. Starts again, intense as a second shot at goal. “ _Never_ do this again. Do you understand me?”

Kent can’t answer. He shuts his eyes, tears streaming down his face, only to snap his eyes back open when Bad Bob shakes him like a terrier.

“ _Do you understand me?_ ”  

“ _Yes_ ,” Kent gasps, and Bad Bob swears, a furious rush of Quebecois. He scruffs Kent like a puppy, hauls him back just far enough to slide to his knees in turn, and uses the space to hug Kent more fiercely than anyone ever has in his whole life. Kent shudders and sobs into Bad Bob’s shoulder, chasing an absolution that he doesn’t deserve and never will and hating hating _hating_ the part of him that thrills to the touch – any touch, any pressure – as more than platonic. _Greedy. Greedy._ He sobs and sobs and doesn’t stop to explain himself, and Bad Bob Zimmerman doesn’t ask, and when Kent finally runs dry, Bob helps him stand again, both shakier and steadier than when he first walked in.

“Sorry is one thing,” he says. “Sorry is good, but don’t stop playing because of it. He wouldn’t want that.” He gives Kent’s shoulder a final squeeze, then lets him go.

Kent nods his head like a puppet. “Okay,” he whispers. “Okay.”

He sees Alicia Zimmerman again on the way out, and flinches under the kindness of her blue, blue gaze _. I broke your son. I touched your husband. Don’t be nice to me._

“Kent?” she says, when he stops on the house’s threshold. “I know Bob probably already said it, but – we’ll tell Jack that you came.”

“Please don’t,” Kent rasps, and flees towards his waiting cab.

The next day, he starts with the Aces.


	3. Jack Again

Trying to recruit Jack to the Aces at a Haus party is an act of masochism. Kent knows this even before he gets within a mile of the place, but he still goes and does it anyway, not least because he’s kept up enough with Jack’s college stats to know he’s bound for the NHL, and where the fuck does that leave Kent? They’ve never properly spoken since the overdose, and Kent is just good enough at lying to himself to go in thinking this means he’s been forgiven (or at least not damned) in absentia. Which ought to make him contrite from the outset, except that it’s a kegster (“Not just a kegster – _Epikegster_!” a hot guy called Ransom proudly informs him) and there’s people and phones aplenty to notice if Kent Parson asks for a private talk with uncharacteristic meekness.

And so he chirps Jack publicly instead (perhaps a little harder than he might’ve, if he wasn’t nearly arm-in-arm with a tiny blonde), and gets him upstairs, and he means, he really does mean for the first words out of his mouth once the door is shut to be _I’m so sorry_ , but he realises too late that he doesn’t recognise this version of Jack, not entirely. He’s taller, heavier for one thing, hard-eyed (and not cyanotic) for another. Kent just stands there, staring and staring, and tries to think how to apologise in a way that won’t cut deeper than if he said nothing at all, and that’s when Jack breaks the silence with, “What the fuck are you doing here, Kenny?”

Kent tries to be professional. He tries so hard, and he still knows the exact moment when he fucks up, sees how Jack goes rigid when he calls the Wellies a _shitty team_ , and suddenly they’re fighting, voices tight and Kent shoving Jack against the door and breathing _I miss you_ into his collarbone, honest and raw for the first time in he doesn’t know how long –

And Jack says, “You always say that.”

A dismissal, hard as being checked. Harder, even, because there’s no hatred in it: only resignation. Like what Kent feels doesn’t matter to Jack beyond vague irritation or disappointment; like it never has and never will, no matter how sorry he is or isn’t, no matter how many nights he still wakes up in a sweat to the dream-conjured sight of Jack out cold on his bathroom floor, no note no reason and where the fuck did those pills come from anyway and no, _no_ , Kent fucked up bad but Jack hurt him, too –

_But only because you’re the one who taught him how._

“…Huh,” says Kent, voice strangled. “Well, shit. Okay.”

The cold truth is this: Kent will gladly live in a world where Jack Zimmermann either loves him or hates his guts, but he can’t bear to have had what they had – to have done what he did to Jack, to Jack’s _dad_ , Jesus Christ – and have Jack merely pity him, be _ambivalent_ to him, like Kent is just some guy he knew in Juniors and not the worm in Jack’s fucking tequila, poison and prize in one. And he can’t possibly make Jack Zimmermann love him again, assuming he ever really did, which leaves the other thing.

And Kent Parson is very good at making people hate him.

“You know what, Zimmermann?”

But he doesn’t hate _Jack_ , is the problem. He never did, and doesn’t now, and what the fuck can you say to someone you’ve only ever loved to make them wish you’d never been born?

The answer comes to Kent in the flash of his own reflection in Jack’s window.

He doesn’t hate Jack, oh god. Not even now.

But he’s always hated himself.

“You think you’re too fucked up to care about?” Kent snarls. “That you’re not good enough? Everyone already knows what you are, but it’s people like me who still care.”

“Shutup –” Jack breathes.

“You’re scared everyone is going to find out you’re worthless, right?” Kent clenches his hands into fists and thinks of how much it’s going to hurt when he finally fucks the Aces up, the same way he’s fucked up everything and everyone else in his goddamn life; how all the world has to do is wait long enough with an iPhone ready, and sooner or later he’ll be seen for what he is. “ _Oh, don’t worry,_ ” he spits out, “ _just give it a few seasons, Jack. Trust me._ ”  

The rest of it happens on autopilot. Jack throws him out and it hurts hurts hurts, and Kent makes a crack about Jack’s dad that’s a lower blow even than trying to blow him to visit Jack in rehab, and then he storms past the little blonde kid and gets himself outside the Haus, just far enough away from it all that there’s nobody around to see when he falls to the grass and doubles over, choking on the awful hiccupping laughter of a panic attack.

Or at least, he thought there was nobody.

“Kent Parson, shit. You okay, bro?”

Kent laughs harder, wheezing as he tries to straighten up. It’s Ransom, the hot toga-guy from earlier; the fact that he’s one of Jack’s teammates only makes it more ironic. “Yeah,” he lies, gasping like a landed fish, “yeah, I’m fine, I’m fine –”

“No, you’re not,” says Ransom, voice gone oddly soft. He puts a hand on Kent’s back and leaves it there, rubbing gentle circles.

“No, I’m not,” Kent agrees, still laughing horribly. “I’m a piece of shit. Just. You don’t even know, okay? Zimms knows. If he didn’t before, he does now.” He tries to make himself shrug away from Ransom’s touch, but can’t, even though he can see his goddamn car from the corner of his eye like cover just waiting to hide him. “You shouldn’t,” he says instead, hating how small his voice comes out. “You shouldn’t be doing this. Not for me.”

“Yeah, I should,” says Ransom, easy and calm. “Doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t do, it’s bad fucking manners to leave someone to ride this shit out alone, and given that you’re out here beating yourself up for it, I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess it’s not as bad as you’re saying.”

“You’re wrong. It is. I said, I said to him –” the laughter starts up again, cracked and hard, “– I knew it would hurt, I _meant_ it to hurt, I just –”

“So maybe you were an asshole,” says Ransom, still rubbing his back. “Still doesn’t mean I can just leave you like this. Shit, I wouldn’t even let a lax bro deal with a panic attack solo, and they’re basically bipedal cockroaches.”

Kent chokes out a laugh that’s somehow more genuine than the jagged sounds that bracket it. “Lax bros, fuck. I’d forgotten that’s a thing.”

“Lucky you, huh?”

“Yeah,” Kent croaks. “Lucky me.”

They stand like that for what feels like an hour, but is probably less than ten minutes. Nobody comes out to bother them, and Ransom doesn’t speak again: just keeps a warm, broad hand on Kent’s back until Kent’s breathing stutters into something like a normal rhythm. It’s only when Kent finally pulls away that Ransom asks, “You drove here, right?”

“Yeah?” says Kent, nonplussed.

Ransom raises a brow. “Are you good to drive now?”

“As good as I’m gonna be, yeah.”

“Okay.” Ransom looks him over, his mouth doing something complicated and unfairly attractive. “Look, you can tell me if this is out of line or whatever, but I’d like to give you my number. So you can text me, you know.” He gestures broadly in the direction of the car. “When you get wherever it is you’re going.”

Kent flicks a wry smile. “You realise I’ve got a game tomorrow, right? You wanna make sure I’m alive, you can just tune in to the Aces.”

“I can do that, yeah,” says Ransom. “But I wanna do this, too. That cool with you?”

And Kent, to his utter astonishment, realises that it is. “Yeah,” he says, “okay. Why not?”

Ransom – aka Justin Oluransi, it turns out – taps his number, full name and nickname into Kent’s phone, hands it back, and grins broadly. “Good luck tomorrow, by the way.”

“Thanks,” says Kent, and stumbles back to his car in a daze.

He doesn’t really register the drive to his hotel. But once he’s safely up in his room, he pulls his phone out, stares at it, and texts Ransom a string of emojis: car-house-sleeping person-moon.

Ransom sends back a thumbs up a minute later, followed almost instantly by _PS: I follow ur cat on Instagram._

 _A sign of good taste,_ Kent replies, and falls asleep with the phone still in his hand.


	4. Ransom

Kent doesn’t mean to make a habit of texting with Ransom, but it somehow keeps on happening. It’s simple stuff at first, an intermittent back-and-forth about their respective hockey games that steadily comes to incorporate more and more personal information. Kent texts Ransom about his cat, and Ransom texts Kent about Holster, who is eerily akin to a 6’4, human version of Kit Purrson, if the bulk of Ransom’s stories are to be believed. (Kent says as much to Ransom, who responds with an incoherent keypad smash followed by _I FUCKING SPAT MY LITERAL TEA ON MY LAPTOP U ASSHOLE_. It may or may not be the highlight of Kent’s day.)

The subject of blood families, however, as distinct from the hockey and animal kinds, proves somewhat more fraught for both of them, albeit for different reasons. Ransom comes from a sprawling, close-knit clan whose various spats and intrigues are like unto K-drama plotlines, while Kent… well. Kent has three half-siblings who he doesn’t see – two younger sisters from his dad’s two subsequent girlfriends, one older brother from his mom’s first boyfriend – and two dirt poor, separated parents who hate each other only slightly more than they resent Kent for not sharing his money with them.

Like so much else, it’s not something he means to tell Ransom. But there’s something about written conversations that makes Kent drop his guard the way he seldom ever does in person – like he’s Ginny Weasley confessing his sins to a diary that talks back – or maybe it’s just that he can’t bear for Ransom to think he’s more of a selfish dick than he really is, and _that_ means explaining himself. Because Ransom, for all his capslock-fuelled venting about various siblings, cousins, uncles and aunties, clearly loves the lot of them, and is therefore somewhat horrified when Kent first talks about having cut his own parents off.

Ransom: _SRSLY??? Like bro I get that families are complex but ur parents GAVE U LIFE, UR LITERAL LIFE. y not help them if u can???_

Kent stares at his phone for almost a minute before replying, realising only as he starts to type how rarely he’s ever laid out the details for someone. He’s been texting with Ransom for nearly two months, but it still feels weirdly new in the scheme of things, and newer still to be this honest with him.

Kent: _my parents are addicts. Dad booze, mom drugs. Ive offered 2 pay 4 rehab for them, but both refuse. Last time I gave dad money he went on a weeklong bender, his gf rang me 2 scream it was my fault if he died. My bro is a mechanic, works hard but hates the idea of “charity”. Wont take a cent & hates it if I offer. I made up college funds 4 the girls, but they can’t access it till theyre 18 or mom wld spend it 4 them. I try at xmas, bdays, but its hard._

Kent watches the moving ellipses of Ransom’s in-progress response for what feels like eternity before the phone rings in his hand. He swears, almost drops it, and somehow fumbles the speaker up to his ear without actually registering the caller ID.

“Hello?”

“I’m sorry,” Ransom says in a rush. “It wasn’t cool of me to assume, to judge –”

“It’s fine,” says Kent, pulse ticking up. He’s on the couch in his apartment, TV paused on an episode of _Chopped_.  “It’s the kind of shit I pay my agent to keep off the internet, so. Not like you would’ve known.”

“Still, though.”

“Yeah.” Kent shuts his eyes, which somehow makes it easier. “It was… even as a kid, I had hockey, y’know? I always had hockey. Maybe if I’d tried to have other shit, too, things might be different with them, or at least I’d be better at trying, but – aw, fuck. You don’t need to hear this. Sorry.”

Even from interstate, Ransom’s easy smile is somehow audible. “Hey, I wouldn’t have called if I didn’t wanna hear you talk, especially not when I’m the one who brought it up. Plus and also, my chem homework’s kicking my ass, I’m about three goddamn seconds away from ending my misery with a mechanical pencil, so –”

“Don’t,” Kent says, voice suddenly tight. _Jack Zimmermann cold on the bathroom floor, a pill bottle clutched in his hand._ “Don’t joke about shit like that. Please.”

“Fuck,” says Ransom, inhaling sharply enough that Kent knows he’s made the connection. “I didn’t think – _fuck_.” He laughs, the sound unsteady. “At this rate, I’m gonna have to use my mad bioengineering skills to make myself a new pair of feet.”

“Huh?”

“You know. Because of how I’ve jammed the originals right in my goddamn mouth?”

Kent laughs despite himself. “Maybe you should lay in a few spares, too. Just in case.”

“Like tyres, eh?”

“Something like that.” Kent grins at his cat, ensconced in all her majesty on top of the TV cabinet, and earns himself a magnanimous ear-flick in response. “You oughta make me a full set while you’re at it. I have it on reliable authority that I’m kind of an asshole.”

“Whose authority?” Ransom says, mock-outraged.

“Mine, actually.” And then, because Kent is apparently constitutionally incapable of keeping the mood light, “Seriously, I’m an asshole, and if we’re gonna keep, uh, socialising or whatever, you need to be aware of the fact that I’m eventually going to fuck this up.”

“Man, that is some dark jinx bullshit right there,” says Ransom, chuckling. “If you’re gonna go through life saying shit like that, you might as well start shaving during playoffs.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Kent says. “My beard comes in red and itches like a motherfucker.”

And just like that, the conversation is okay again. A few minutes later, Kent puts _Chopped_ back on in the background, Ransom overhears it, and they end up watching the same episode together, talking shit about the contestants and chirping each other about their respective favourites.

Somehow, phone TV becomes a regular thing, though they mostly stick with texting otherwise. Even so, when Ransom texts three months into their whatever-this-is to say _I almost had a panic attack in bio today_ , Kent startles them both by calling him as soon as he sees it, even though the text is hours old at that point, a weird sort of throbbing in his chest at the thought of Ransom not being okay.

“Yeah, bro,” says Ransom, laughing off the awkwardness of it. “I’m fine now. I thought I’d lost my notes, but it turns out I just brought the wrong folder. S’cool.”

“Cool,” says Kent, clinging somewhat desperately to his phone. He’s standing in the car park outside the rink for training, shoulders hunched in a vain attempt to guard against Swoops’s curious head tilt. “Just… wanted to check in, you know?”   

“Thanks, man,” says Ransom. “You’re a good guy, y’know?”, and it’s only words, it shouldn’t fucking _matter_ so much, but his voice is soft and warm in a way that feels like being hugged, and Kent… Kent is used to a lot of things, but being thought of as a good person isn’t one of them.

 _Because you’re not,_ a little voice whispers.

 _I know,_ he thinks at it. _But it’s nice to pretend, with him._

They talk for a minute more before saying goodbye, but when Kent hangs up he can’t remember what the hell else they said to each other; only the sound of Ransom’s voice, and the bone-deep certainty that he doesn’t deserve for anyone to talk to him like that.

“Hey,” says Swoops, jolting him out of his reverie. “You okay, cap?”

“Yeah,” says Kent, plastering on a smile as he shoves his phone back in his pocket. “Peachy.”

Swoops gives him what Kent is prepared to categorise as a Look. “You know the team’s got your back, right?” he says, just a hair too carefully for his casual tone of voice. “On the ice or off it, it doesn’t matter.”

“You say that now,” says Kent, striving for lightness, “but none of you has ever seen me do karaoke.” And he starts to walk to the rink.

Or tries to walk, anyway: Swoops stops him with an arm across his chest, a flash of something in his eyes that Kent doesn’t want to interpret.

“Don’t,” Swoops says. “Can you just – just _listen_ for a damn minute?” He drops his arm, expression suddenly hesitant. “Kent, if you – if you ever decide – if you ever came out to us, it wouldn’t change how we look at you. You’re our captain, and a damn good one, and I just –”

“Stop,” says Kent, faintly. He feels as though his brain has detached from his body, like he’s floating a foot and a half behind his own head. “What the fuck are you even… what the _fuck_ , Swoops?”

A muscle works in Swoops’s jaw. “If I’m wrong, then I’m wrong. But I’ve got a feeling I’m not.” He nods his head to indicate Kent’s phone. “And if you’ve got someone now –”

“Stop,” Kent says again. He can’t even process this conversation. He’s come completely unstuck. His mouth feels dry, and he has the sudden, manic urge to laugh, because of all things he’s thinking of an old Alec Guiness film he’s always secretly loved, _Kind Hearts and Coronets_ , where the multiply-murdering hero is arrested, not for any of the crimes he did commit, but for the one death that’s really a suicide. It’s an irony Kent feels well-placed to appreciate right now, because he so often forgets to be careful, hooking up in bars where he might be recognised, letting men leave beard-burn on him before practice, pausing too long over pronouns when talking about old sexual partners, and somehow the thing that’s tipped Swoops off isn’t any of that, oh no: it’s his platonic fucking texting with Ransom, who’s almost certainly straight even if he _does_ go to Samwell, but who nonetheless represents the longest, most stable relationship of any kind Kent’s ever had that isn’t with a teammate, and no, Kent refuses to be fucking pitied for this, for Swoops to look at him like he’s doing right now, like Kent is somehow hurting just by being himself –

“I don’t have someone,” Kent grits out, and his voice doesn’t sound like his voice at all, which is maybe the only reason why Swoops’s mouth snaps shut on whatever he’d been about to say; like he finally understands he’s crossed a goddamn line. “We’re not fucking talking about this, okay?”

And before Swoops can answer, Kent shoves angrily past him, trying to get his head in the game for practice.

It works, but only because hockey is what Kent _does_. He shoves the harder, more ambiguous feelings aside and focusses on being angry, uses it to fuel his skating. He trains well because of it, stays tight and clear and shouts encouragement to his team, even Swoops, who’s a goddamn excellent player. But when they’re done for the day, Kent doesn’t linger. He showers, changes, heads to his car and drives the fuck away before Swoops can pin him down again, a tremble in his hands as he grips the wheel.

Three months ago – before Kent tried and failed to woo Jack to the Aces; before he drove out of Samwell with Ransom’s number in his phone – if Swoops had talked to Kent about coming out, he would have rolled with it. Played it down, maybe, or played it off, but he knows in his gut he wouldn’t have reacted the same as he did tonight, like his soul had been forcibly dislocated from his body. Hell, he knows it’s not _just_ texting with Ransom that’s pinged Swoops’s radar – see above, re: Kent isn’t careful – and on the rare days when he lets himself actively think about it, he tends to figure he occupies, if not exactly a glass closet, then certainly an unsoundproofed one with the door cracked open. People always speculated about him and Jack, and Kent’s both familiar enough with the dark side of the internet to know what RPF is and perverse enough to torment himself with it when drunk. (And sometimes when he’s sober, if he’s honest, provided the works in question don’t feature him in a starring role or get too much into Feelings beyond porn. There’s plenty of famous hot men in the world who Kent is happy to fantasise about, straight and otherwise, so why not let someone who’s good with words do the imaginative heavy lifting?)  

But he can’t roll with it now, and the reason why gets lodged in his throat as he guns it through a yellow light: that after what he did to Jack – what he just did to Jack _again_ – Kent doesn’t deserve to get to come out first, and especially not to someone understanding, of his own volition, because if and when one of them _does_ come out, the nature and pervasiveness of all those old rumours mean the other will instantly be dragged into it, too. And the thought of Kent putting Jack in that position now, of all times – of letting so much as a whisper of actual confirmation spread through the NHL right when Jack, who Kent already ruined once, is working so hard to be signed – makes Kent feel so physically nauseous that he pulls the car over, certain he’s going to be sick.

He’s not, in the end, but it feels like a near thing, Kent panting as he hangs his head out the open door, the dashboard bing-bonging its disapproval of his unbuckled seatbelt.   

And then he gets back in, and buckles up, and drives the rest of the way home without incident. He lets Kit comfort him in her strange cat way, which mostly involves loving him with her claws if he tries to shift her off his lap, and forces himself to postpone any other sort of reaction until after their next game, which is in two days.

It’s a home game against the Devils; the Aces win 4-3 in OT, but the Devils play hard and dirty, and by the end of it Kent is pent up with all the frustration he didn’t dare show on the ice for fear of dropping his gloves. Their next game is four whole days away, which means the team goes out for (technically celebratory) drinks afterwards, and Kent sticks around for as long as he can stand to act like a person before making his excuses.

Blood itching in his skin, he goes to a distant bar where he’s never been recognised and never wants to be, cruising for exactly what he finds: a man big enough and strong enough to toss him around who’s demonstrably willing to do so. His name is Matt, and it’s reckless, so fucking reckless when Kent agrees to go back to his place, but it’s what he deserves and what he wants, and Matt is so perfectly rough with him that Kent almost cries, hiccupping as he fists the sheets and braces himself against Matt’s thrusts.

He leaves with Matt’s number in his phone and a new set of bruises layered over the ones from the match, and it’s fine, it’s so fine, it ought to be fine, except that he gets all the way home and drops to his knees in the kitchen right after feeding Kit, and what the fuck is wrong with him? He watches his cat eat kibble while panting for breath that isn’t there, and Kent’s not an alcoholic, okay, he’s seen what that shit does to his dad, but sometimes he just doesn’t wanna be in his head anymore, and this is one of those times. He fumbles the fridge open, pulls the nearest bottle of wine from the chiller and drinks it right there on the floor, necking the whole thing in a disgracefully short amount of time. It makes him feel sick on the stomach, but it somehow steadies his head, makes everything just that little bit fuzzier around the edges. He can sleep like this, now.

He staggers off to bed and passes out.

The next morning, he wakes to a string of texts from Ransom: an apology for not watching the game live, followed by a promise to do so immediately, followed by a running commentary as he sits through the whole thing, as outraged by the Devils at a distance as the Aces were in the thick of it.

The final text is clearly made in reference to a particularly hard check Kent took in OT: _shit, that asshole really had it out 4 u. R U ok?_

Kent stares at the screen and considers telling Ransom the truth: that he’s not okay, that he increasingly wonders if he actually knows what okay even feels like; that his coping mechanisms are all fucked up; that his team is starting to notice. He’s never lied to Ransom before, not even when it meant being honest about his family, but Kent doesn’t want pity and he doesn’t want to be seen for what he is, and fuck, it’s not as if he’s some bastion of truth and virtue, right?

 _Im fine_ , he texts back, the words a mantra in his head.

_I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine._

He’s not.


	5. Matt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings in the endnotes.

The season ends with the Aces missing the playoffs: Kent knows the team worked their assess off, but he’s still pissed – at the universe, at himself – and hates the antsy feeling that settles under his skin as a result. He knows it’s a bad idea to see Matt again before he ever texts him about it, the same as he knew that going to see Jack at Samwell was a bad idea. Now as then, he does it anyway, and when he comes limping home afterwards, bruised and sated and empty, he tells himself he’s learned his lesson; he’s not going to do it again. Without the constant preoccupation of hockey, he’s got a lot of time on his hands for making bad decisions, which means he ought to find room for some good ones, too, and with Swoops still looking like he wants to have A Talk about Kent’s feelings, there’s only one other person who fits the bill.

Two days later, Kent is sacked out on the couch watching phone TV with Ransom, who’s just finished his finals and is celebrating by getting stoned as all fuck. It’s stupidly adorable: Ransom’s voice is syrupy with it, slow and measured and full of laughter, and Kent feels a visceral jolt to realise how much Ransom means to him. He’s never had a, a _friend_ like this before, someone who enjoys his company just because, who isn’t obliged to hang out with him because they’re on the same team but does so anyway, who makes time for him and answers his dumb 2am texts _(“do u think kit would eat me if I died in the house?? Like I know cats Do That but do u think she’d at least mourn me a little first?”_ _“GO THE FUCK TO SLEEP PARSE, YOU HAVE A GAME TOMORROW” “but would she tho???” “yeah she would, ur edible” “true ;)”_ ) and doesn’t judge him for babytalking his cat.

Right now, they’re watching one of the paintball episodes of _Community_ , which both of them have seen before and are therefore happy to talk over. It’s a great show, but Kent has never had someone to watch it with, and even though he can’t actually see Ransom, it nonetheless feels like they’re sitting next to each other. He’s trying hard not to think of it as a date, actually: he knows their texting sometimes veers into flirting territory, and while Kent knows exactly why _he’s_ doing it, Ransom is a Samwell bro, which means he’s secure enough to play gay chicken without calling No Homo. Still, it’s close enough to something real to occasionally make his breath catch.

Kent’s had three glasses of wine, which he actually prefers to beer when nobody’s there to chirp him for it, and is mellow in his contemplation of a fourth when, suddenly, it happens.

On screen, Abed puts on his vest and starts impersonating Han Solo, and Ransom, with a wistful sigh, says, “Shit, I would totally do him like that.”

“Hell yeah,” says Kent – automatically, because he feels relaxed and comfortable and Danny Pudi is nothing if not easy on the eyes – and then he remembers he isn’t out and freezes right the fuck up.

“I mean,” Ransom starts, presumably having the same sort of belated epiphany about his own comment – and then, as he realises what Kent said in response to it, “Wait, what?”

“Pause,” says Kent faintly, listening for the telltale click as Ransom stops the episode. He does the same on his end, heart beating loud in his throat. “Uh. So are you – that wasn’t –?”

“Yeah.” Ransom swallows hard. “I’m, uh. I’m bi.” He laughs nervously. “Is that, like, gonna be a problem? Because I know what the NHL is like, I mean hockey in general, and –”

“I’m gay,” Kent says, in a gulping rush.

Absolute silence.

“Holy shit,” says Ransom, softly. “Holy shit, _Kent_.”

“Don’t tell anyone. You can’t.” He’s shaking, one hand fisted in his hair, the other gripping the phone so hard he can hear the plastic creaking. “Justin, please –”

“I won’t. I won’t tell.”

“If it was just me, I wouldn’t care, but Zimms –” He breaks off, appalled and panicked at the slip. “Shitfuck, forget I said that, forget I said –”

“You’re dating _Jack_?” says Ransom, voice all twisted up in a way Kent’s never heard before.

“Jesus Christ, _no_ , but because of the Q –”

“You were dating _then_?”

Kent makes a fractured sound that fails to pass for laughter. “We were something then, all right. But I ruined it. I hurt him so fucking bad, Rans, and I brought it all back at the kegster, and you can’t – you can’t tell him I told you, okay? You can’t tell _anyone_.” He sucks in air, dizzy with a belated realisation that feels like a suckerpunch. “Or Holster, I guess, you can tell Holster – he’s your boyfriend, right?”

“He’s not,” says Ransom, voice so quiet now. “He’s my best friend, but he’s straight. We’re just… platonic soulmates, I guess?” And then, gently, “I don’t have to tell him anything, K.”

“Yeah you do.” Kent smiles at the paused TV in a way he knows is ghastly. “Secrets are fucked up to have by yourself, I can’t put that on you. You need to sanity check with someone, you tell Holster, okay?”

“Okay,” says Ransom. He pauses, his breathing audible over the line. “Kent, can we – can I FaceTime you right now? It’s cool if not, but I wanna – shit, man, I wanna see you.”

“Okay,” says Kent, shakily. “Yeah, sure, whatever –”

He hangs up, then picks up the video call three seconds later. His chest goes tight at the sight of Ransom, who he hasn’t seen in real-time since the kegster. He’s alone in his room in the Haus, a scrape of stubble on his perfect jaw, his dark eyes liquid with weed and worry. He’s clearly shirtless, the muscular rounds of his shoulders visible in frame, and despite everything, Kent is momentarily hypnotised by the line of his collarbone.

“Kent,” Ransom says – and then his eyes go wide for a different reason, body jerking as he leans in close to his phone. “Holy shit, bro, what happened? I saw your last game, and that is _not_ from the ice.”  

Kent had forgotten about the bruise; or rather, forgotten how it might look to someone else. It’s purple-dark and sprawling across his left cheek, and Kent, who hasn’t been out of his apartment since acquiring it, has neither the energy nor inclination to lie about where it came from. He shrugs, feigning nonchalance, and tries for a trademark smirk.

“What, like nobody’s ever slapped you during sex before?”

“No,” says Ransom, surprised. “I mean, no judgement or whatever, I’m just not really into that kind of kink.”

Kent blinks at him, nonplussed. “What the hell does kink have to do with anything? It’s just sex.”

“What do you mean, it’s just sex?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No,” says Ransom, looking at him strangely, “I really don’t.”

Kent makes a frustrated noise. “Sex is sex. It gets rough sometimes, especially if you’re doing it properly. Right?”

“Yeah, but there’s rough and _rough_ , Kent, and if you’re negotiating that sort of damage –” he flicks his gaze to the bruise, “– then yeah, you’re doing kink.”

Kent imagines sitting down over tea with Matt and _negotiating_ , please, to be fucked over the kitchen table and called a slut, and bursts out laughing. “People actually do that?” he says, chuckling. “Man, what a fucking mood killer.”

“You didn’t… you don’t negotiate that stuff?”

“Why would I do that?”

Ransom goes very still. “For safety, K. So you only get hurt the way you want to be hurt.”

“I don’t _want_ to be hurt, Jesus.” Kent gives him an affronted look. “It’s a by-product, Rans, that’s all. It’s like being checked: I don’t play hockey to get slammed into the boards, but it’s still part of the game, it still happens. That’s all this is.”

“No, it’s not. It’s _really not_.” Ransom looks genuinely distressed now, running a shaky hand across his tight, dark curls. “Fucking Christ, there’s a difference between manhandling and _abuse_ , Kent, and unless you expressly asked whoever the fuck this was to hit you in the face, he wasn’t doing the first thing.”

Kent goes hot and cold all over at that. “Fuck you,” he snaps. “I know what I’m doing.”  

“Don’t bullshit me, Parson. Not about this.”

“Then don’t you fucking judge me!”

“I’m not!” Rans yells. “I’m judging the fuckstain who hit you!”

“Well, at least he’s _here_!” Kent shouts, and oh, shit, he did _not_ mean to say that. Ransom’s eyes go wide.

“What the hell does that mean?” he asks, hoarsely.

“I don’t know,” says Kent, rage replaced by draining shock, “I don’t – I didn’t mean it like that –”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, Jesus!” Kent flings his arm away but doesn’t throw the phone, letting it splay screen-down on the couch instead. He’s breathing hard, an itch in his eyes like he’s going to cry, and when, after nearly ten full seconds, he finally picks the phone up again, he fully expects for Rans to have dropped the call.

He hasn’t, though. He’s still there, sitting hunched in a way that says he’s got his phone in both hands and his elbows braced on his knees.  

“I’m sorry,” Kent says, and it comes out a rasp. “I told you I’d fuck this up.”

“You haven’t, though.”

“Yeah, I have. I can’t – I can’t fucking do this, Rans.”

“Do what? Be friends with me?”

Kent tries to smile and can’t. “Is that what we are?”

Ransom’s breathing hitches. “What do you want us to be?”

“Anything, so long as it doesn’t hurt.”

“I don’t – I can’t promise that, Kent. Not the way I think you mean it.”

“What do you think I mean?”

“That you want this to be easy. That you want me never to call you out or make mistakes or –” he huffs a breath, eyes darkening, “– never make you feel something you didn’t expect.”

Kent is shaking again, fine tremors from top to toe. “Guess I really am asking the moon, huh?”

“Kent –”

“Don’t. We both know this can’t – that I can’t – that you don’t need me.”

“I don’t _need_ a lot of things,” says Ransom. “Doesn’t mean I don’t still want them.”

“I want,” says Kent, and bites down hard on the urge to say _you, just you_. It’s so hard to swallow, he’s quiet for several seconds, but Kent learned his lesson a long time ago: his wanting is toxic, and the thought of hurting Ransom the way he once hurt Jack is enough to nearly undo him. “I want a lot of things. But right now, what I _need_ is to pretend we never had this conversation.”

“Kent, wait –”

“Goodbye, Rans.”

He ends the call, turns off his phone, and curls up in a ball on the couch. After a while, Kit Purrson comes and sits on his hip, kneading the bone as she settles into a floofy guardian loaf. Kent reaches reflexively to take a photo before he remembers that his phone is off and sinks back into numbness.  

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but when he wakes it’s nearly 11pm and Kit is nowhere to be seen. Groggy and disoriented, Kent grabs his phone and stares at it, wondering what the fuck he’s going to find when he turns it on again. It’s not like he can just throw it out and get a new number – or, well, he _could_ , but it would be a pain in the ass for a whole bunch of reasons, and anyway, Ransom has his home address if he really wants to get in touch. (Three weeks ago, he posted Kent a gift: a customised Kent Parson Funko Pop that Kent suspects Lardo was ultimately responsible for painting, but which nonetheless left him breathless. It’s on his trophy shelf, front and centre, and is possibly the only thing he’s ever been given that wasn’t for an occasion or because of ulterior motive. A _just because_ gift, Ransom called it.)

Kent turns his phone on and lets out a whoosh of breath. Ransom has sent him no less than ten texts, and in an act of typical masochism, Kent reads through them all.

Ransom: _I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want you to be hurt._

Ransom: _Sorry. I’m still hella stoned and Im trying really hard to make sense here, maybe I shld wait until Ive sobered up but I don’t want u to think ive just given up or gone away or whatever._

Ransom: _I dont know what went down btween u and Jack and im not going to ask for details from either 1 of u, but I feel like it hurt you too. Doesn’t mean u didn’t hurt him but youre allowed 2 have feelings too._

Ransom: _& I know jacks my friend so I dont know how 2 say this so youll believe it, but just bcos I cant imagine him ever hitting any1 off the ice or hurting u like that other guy did doesnt mean it wasnt different before  & if u want/need to talk about it ever ill listen, ill believe u_

Ransom: _not just because I care about you but bcos im really worried u don’t know what consent is w sex. Like I dont mean that as a knock on u or a chirp or whatever but._

Ransom: _im going to try to type this really carefully hang on, its harder like this_

Ransom: _Sex shouldn’t hurt unless you specifically ask the other person(s) to hurt you, and they agree to hurt you in just the ways you like, no more and no less, and to stop right away if you say so, and to take care of you once you’re done. And some people do like that stuff, to be slapped or spanked or punished somehow, but you said that you don’t. That you don’t want to hurt at all. And that’s your RIGHT Kent, you’re entitled to that, nobody should fucking hurt you in bed just as a random part of sex, okay? It’s NOT like hockey, it’s NOT part of the game because SEX ISN’T A GAME. Liking some of what someone does to you or with you in bed doesn’t mean you have to accept them hurting you as the price for it, or as part of it. You shouldn’t have to walk it off afterwards like a dirty check, and the fact that you play a contact sport doesn’t mean it’s okay for people to hurt you in other contexts. Not EVER. And when I say hurt I don’t just mean leaving bruises, I mean doing anything you don’t like or don’t want that makes you feel upset or wrong or that you didn’t agree to first. Not saying no isn’t the same as a yes. It’s not your fault; it’s theirs._

Ransom: _cards on the fucking table, ive been into you since before we ever met. I think youre funny & smart & hot & youre a shit sometimes but you play good hockey & I just. I really like hanging out with u & whatever u want from me Im cool with that, ill understand, but I want u to know this has never been about getting into ur pants or whatever, im not sayin all this stuff so youll feel obligated to keep me in ur life. I just._

Ransom: _I just really want you to be okay. I want you to know you deserve to have people in your life who treat you well, who don’t just randomly hurt you and act like that’s fine. And if you don’t want one of them to be me, I can accept that, I’m a grownass bro. But you deserve nice things, and I’m sorry I didn’t realise sooner that you needed someone to tell you so._

Ransom: _pls let me know, that’s all I want. Whatever u decide, just let me know._

Kent puts the phone down, eyes swimming with tears. He doesn’t know how or what to feel, he can’t even _breathe_ , Jesus –

_Ransom’s hand, warm on his lower back. A murmured voice in the dark._

Kent curls up and sobs.

His phone buzzes in his hand.

 _Ransom_ , Kent thinks, and struggles to get his breathing under control, surging upright as he swipes to unlock the message.

But it’s not from Ransom. Not this time.

Matt: _hard & thinkin of u_

Kent Parson is twenty-four years old, and in that time, he’s managed to make a spectacular number of bad decisions. Even so, there are a handful that stand out in memory, not only because of how they made him feel afterwards, but because, looking back, he could feel them coming: a tingle of dark premonition that ought to have warned him to pick again, but which instead had the perverse effect making him double down with misplaced, fatally determined self-confidence. Which is also why, despite knowing this in retrospect, he never quite cottons on at the time: whatever part of him fears the probable outcome is so invested in making the alternative happen that he can’t properly access it when it matters.

He feels it now, looking at Matt’s text, and though deep down his stomach churns, the reckless, desperate part of him that wants everything to be okay insists that he can make this right; that, by applying Ransom’s logic to sex with Matt, he can mend something in himself. It’s never quite occurred to Kent that he can ask out loud for what he wants in bed; therefore (he thinks) it’s only logical to assume that Matt hasn’t, either. It doesn’t help that Kent is all fucked up with the need to touch and be touched, that he’s muggy from tears and sleep and the better part of a bottle of wine; that Ransom, who he really wants, is on the other side of the fucking country. So why not sleep with Matt? It’s not like Kent ever asked for anything properly the first two times; he can change that now, make it better between them. Matt might even prefer it this way.

Kent: _ur place or mine?_  

Matt: _mine. be here in 30_

Kent: _sure_

He feeds his cat. He calls a cab. He washes up, gets dressed, and looks at himself in the mirror, eyes glancing off the spreading bruise.

 _It’s going to be okay,_ he tells himself. _You’ll be okay. He’ll understand._

And then he leaves, his phone slipped into his pocket.

 

*

 

Ransom isn’t crying. He’s _not_. His face isn’t even doing anything; he’s just lying on Holster’s bunk and staring blankly up at his own, because fucking up this epically has robbed him of the ability to climb the damn ladder. And yet the first thing Holster says on stepping into the attic is, “Bro, the fuck? Are you okay?”

“No,” says Ransom, who’s not as stoned as he was two hours ago, but isn’t yet fully sober. “I mean. Yeah. No. I don’t know.”

“Rans.” Holster sits down next to him, frowning worriedly. “C’mon. Talk to me.”

Ransom tries to laugh. “You know, I can actually do that? I’ve got permission and everything.”

Holster’s gaze sharpens. “Is this about Parson?”

“Yeah,” says Ransom, and braces for a chirp that doesn’t come. It’s not like he keeps being bi on the DL – the team all know, as do his family and friends – but Holster’s the only one who knows he’s been texting with Kent since Epikegster, and the only one who knows that Rans had a not-so-subtle crush on him even before then. Not exactly the sort of thing to bring up where Jack could hear it, given all the gossip about their history; gossip he now knows to be much more factual than false. He has, let’s face it, _gushed_ at Holster on more than one occasion, and Holster has responded with a mix of support and chirping, depending on the moment, but now –

Now, he’s silent, looking at Ransom with undisguised concern.

“Tell me,” Holster says.

So Ransom does.

He tells him how they accidentally outed themselves; how Kent is into him, too, but doesn’t know what to do with it because of how he’s all fucked up over Jack (Holster inhales sharply at that, but doesn’t interrupt); how Kent’s family don’t have his back and how, far more worryingly, Kent is evidently involved with the kind of guy who’s happy backhanding his partners for kicks, and doesn’t even understand why that might be a bad thing. He tells him that Kent said he could tell Holster but no one else, and finishes by pulling out his phone and showing Holster the last texts he sent after Kent hung up on him, and if it wasn’t for the residual weed in his system, the fact that they’ve all been seen but remain unanswered would probably tip him into coral reef mode.

“Shit,” says Holster, handing back his phone. “That is messed up, bro.”

“I know.”

Holster twists his hands together, staring at them hard. “Do you honestly think that Jack –?”

“No!” Ransom sits bolt upright, only narrowly managing not to clip his head on the bunk. “No, not like that. And the way Jack and Shitty are about bringing up Kent – hell, the way he talks about what went down – it’s not like I think he’s some angel who did nothing wrong, in his life, ever.”

Holster’s lips twitch at the _Parks and Rec_ reference. “Fair.”

“But it’s just.” Ransom swings his legs over the edge, staring at his knees. “Fuck, this is so hard to explain, bro. Just… I’ve seen how he is interviews and shit like that, and it’s not the same guy I talk to on the phone, you know? Like obviously it _is_ him, but it’s a front, it’s not what he really is. And what’s underneath… he blames himself for what happened to Jack, but they were basically taddies when it all went down, and with all his family shit –” He breaks off suddenly, swearing under his breath.

“What?” says Holster.

“Something he said once,” says Ransom, rubbing at his forehead. “Which, okay, this is going to sound so messed up that I’m only _just now_ realising it was always messed up – like, Shitty would totally bash me over the fucking head with a gender studies textbook – but he mentioned once that his first time was with someone older, that it wasn’t what he’d been expecting but was definitely a learning curve, and like. It’s not as if he laid out how old he was at the time, but I realised afterwards it was when he was in Juniors, so he must’ve been, like, fifteen at _most_ , and I figured he was straight, okay, and talking about some older girl, except that now I know he isn’t and _wasn’t,_ and that just – changes it, the way it sits with me. And it shouldn’t, I know that, it was always messed up, but you figure at least a younger guy with an older girl, it’s a different dynamic, it’s not – like it’s still predatory, it’s still wrong, but it’s less likely to be her holding him down and _taking_ , right? But an older guy with a younger guy… I’ve seen that shit at bars, skeezy chickenhawks pressuring the twinkiest dudes they can find into whatever they can get, and if that’s his yardstick for what sex is – if that’s why he thinks it’s okay to let some rapey fuckstick _hurt_ him –”

The phone buzzes in his hand. Ransom breaks off, staring at it, heart pounding as he swipes the message open.

Kent: _hel pm e_

Holster reads it over his shoulder, eyes going wide as he looks at Ransom, whose stomach jolts with awful premonition.

“Call him,” Hoster says, voice tight. “Now.”

Ransom does it, thumbing the phone onto speaker in the process. The line rings three times before Kent picks up, and when he speaks, his voice is a muzzy slur.

“Rans?”

Ransom feels physically sick. “Kent, are you okay?”

“No. Not okay. Did a dumb thing. I.” He’s panting softly, a weak, laboured sound. “I fucked up.”

Banging sounds in the background – harsh and solid, like fists on wood, accompanied by angry shouting. It’s too garbled by distance for individual words to be clear, but the voice is unmistakeably male. Ransom’s hair stands on end.

“Need you to call Swoops – Nick, I mean,” says Kent, into the silence of Ransom’s shock. He rattles off a phone number – Holster lurches out of the bunk to grab a pen and write it down – then gulps and says, “Tell him he was right, and I’m sorry, and that I need help. I need him to come get me, please, at – ” The banging and shouting increases; Kent slurs out an address despite it, and finishes with, “Now. But no cops, if he can’t. I can’t.” His voice turns into a sob. “I can’t, Justin, I’m so fucking sorry, I _can’t_ –”

The line goes dead.

It’s midnight in Vegas, and Ransom has to call the number Kent gave him three times before an annoyed-sounding man picks up and tells him to fuck off, presumably working on the assumption that Ransom is a telemarketer, barely staying on the line long enough for Ransom to shout that he’s Kent’s friend, please, there’s something wrong. The guy – Swoops – shuts up at that, but swears violently when Ransom passes on Kent’s message and the address, along with his fears about the guy he’s with.

“I can be there in fifteen minutes,” says Swoops. “I’ll call the other guys, too, get them out to help – I’ll text you at this number as soon as I know what the fuck is happening, okay?”

“Okay,” says Ransom, who’s struggling to breathe.

Swoops swears again, more softly than before. “You’re the one he’s been messaging, aren’t you,” he says, and it’s not a question.

“Yeah,” says Ransom. “That’s me.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” says Swoops, fervently. He’s clearly moving as he talks, doors slamming, car keys clicking. “And I’m guessing you’re not local, yeah?”

“You could say that. I’m in Boston.”

“Fucking Christ, man. I’m sorry. I’ll text you, okay?”

“Okay.”

Swoops hangs up, and Ransom is left staring at his phone. _I have to wait,_ he tells himself, _I have to wait, I have to wait, there’s nothing else I can do right now –_

“Fuck this,” says Holster, suddenly. He surges to his feet, giving Ransom’s shoulder a hard squeeze. “Give me ten minutes, bro. I’ll be right back.”

Ransom nods, not really listening. He’s a creature of plans and habit and routine, and he doesn’t know how the fuck to handle something like this, but he can’t stop thinking about Kent’s voice, how cracked and wrong it sounded, and that banging in the background like he was barricaded somewhere, trying to keep himself safe and Ransom can’t _fucking do anything_ –  

“Get your shit,” says Holster, bursting back into the room with, of all people, Jack and Bitty in tow. “We’re flying to Vegas.”

Ransom just stares at him; stares at Bitty, who’s worriedly biting his lip, and then at Jack, whose face is set in full Hockey Robot mode. “What?” he says, dumbly.

“I have money,” Jack says, his voice a monotone rasp. “The next flight to Vegas leaves in three hours. We have tickets. We’re going.”

“All of us,” adds Bitty, lifting his tiny chin. “Y’all aren’t leaving me here with the frogs while you run off to have hockey-related shenanigans.”

“We’ll meet you both downstairs,” says Jack, and ushers Bitty out of the attic, leaving Ransom and Holster alone.

“What the fuck did you tell them?” Ransom hisses.

“The minimum,” says Holster. “That you and Kent hit it off, that you’re friends, and that he just called you really fucked up because some indeterminately bad shit was going down, bad enough that he needed his team to come get him. And.” He pauses, meeting Ransom’s gaze. “I _may_ have implied that it might’ve related a little to his and Jack’s history.”

“And Bitty?” Ransom asks, almost desperately.

“He was in the kitchen with Jack,” says Holster, shrugging as he starts to shove clothes in a duffle bag, “and as soon as I said what was up, he wanted to come, and Jack looked marginally less freaked the fuck out when that happened, so I didn’t argue, especially not as he’s the one springing for tickets. Now put a fucking shirt on and help me pack, okay?”

“Bro,” says Ransom, suddenly overwhelmed. “Holster, I –”

Holster grins at him. “Yeah, yeah, I’m da bomb. Now hurry the fuck up, would you? And don’t forget your phone charger!”

Ransom moves like lightning.

 

*

 

“Swoops?” Kent mumbles, sagging in his teammate’s arms. “Did we win?”

“Jesus fuck, Parser,” Swoops says, breathing raggedly. “You with us?”

Kent tries to move and feels his back flash with pain. “No,” he mumbles. And then, heart pounding, the word a memory trigger, “No no _no_ , fuck – Swoops, I gotta – I gotta get out, I gotta –”

“It’s okay,” Swoops says, and helps Kent stagger into his car. “It’s okay, we’ve got you. We’ve all got you.”

“Oh,” says Kent, and goes limp again, only intermittently aware of neon flickering outside tinted windows as they drive through the night; of Swoops and one of the other Aces helping him into his apartment, swearing at Kit as she gets underfoot; of lying crashed out on his bed as the team doctor looks him over, murmuring words like _muscle strain_ and _bruising_ and _concussion,_ which are familiar and therefore soothing, but interspersed with stranger concepts like _fought back hard_ and _rape kit_ , which are confusing until Kent remembers, in part, what happened.

“Don’ need one,” he slurs, forcing himself to lift his aching head and squint at Swoops.

“Don’t need what, Parser?”

“Rape kit,” he says, surprised by the slow yet visceral shudder that accompanies the words. “He didn’t… I got away.”

Swoops makes a punched-out noise. “Oh, thank _fuck_.”

It hits Kent then, in a sudden burst of clarity, exactly what happened at Matt’s house, and the shame he feels at anyone knowing – of _Swoops_ knowing, or Ransom – oh, fuck, he called _Ransom_ there – is sharp enough that he doubles over, a pitiful noise in his throat.

“Are you hurt?” the doctor asks.

Kent can only shake his head, eyes squeezing shut.

What happens next happens in fits and starts: Kent wants to sleep, but he’s woozy enough with concussion that the doctor wants him watched, which means that Swoops and some of the other Aces are drafted to watch him in shifts until, somewhat paradoxically, he’s deemed awake and lucid enough to be allowed to sleep. And all the while, there are phonecalls: Matt has been arrested, someone has called the GMs and Kent’s agent, and as far as Kent, in his headbruised state, can gather, the whole thing is going to be spun in the press as a violent but minor assault, the other details kept firmly under wraps. An officer will be brought in to interview him tomorrow, pending medical approval, to be supervised jointly by a lawyer, a GM and the team psychologist. Kent is… okay with that, for the moment, inasmuch as he feels _okay_ about anything.

“Kent,” says the doctor, sometime around 3am. “Can you talk?”

Kent, who’s been staring hard at the wall for an indeterminate length of time while absently petting Kit Purrson, nods. The doctor makes a noise in his throat.

“Would you, then?”     

“Oh,” says Kent, voice raspy in a way he didn’t expect. He blinks, long and slow, and stares at the doctor. “Sure. Why?”

“Just wanted to make sure you could, is all. Concussions are funny things.”

Kent nods. He knows he can talk, and knows that he likely will tomorrow, but right now, he can’t bring himself to reward the curiosity of his angry, worried teammates by explaining what happened – what he _let_ happen – when he doesn’t have the energy to ward off their judgement. He aches all over, which makes no sense: it’s not like Matt did much more damage than some really rough hockey, but Kent’s never felt so small like this after a game before. He has the sudden, furious urge to tell everyone to fuck off out of his apartment and leave him alone, but the words die on his tongue: even if he gets rid of some of the Aces, he still merits medical supervision, and unless he wants his ass dragged to a hospital, all he’ll succeed in doing is showing exactly how much he hates being seen like this. He ought to tell a joke instead, do _something_ to detract from the oppressive air of concern in the room, but can’t muster up the energy for it.

After what feels like an eternity, he’s finally allowed to sleep. Swoops stays to keep an eye on him, and the others file out, leaving Kent to fall, exhausted, into oblivion.

He doesn’t dream, but when he finally wakes again, a syrup-tacky ascent into consciousness, it feels like dreaming, because his house is full of voices whose owners have no business being there. He blinks, struggling to sit up, wincing at the pain that spikes in his back and side and shoulders. At that, the voices fall abruptly quiet – all of them save one.

“Kent?” says Ransom.

Kent opens his eyes, and stares. Ransom, rumpled and worried, is sitting by his bedside in the chair formerly occupied by Swoops, who’s hovering now in the doorway. Between them are three other people: Holster, tall and unmistakable; Bitty, tiny and Southern; and Jack Zimmermann, who’s standing at the foot of the bed with a look on his face like he doesn’t know which way is up.

“Hey, Rans,” Kent says, trying to muster up a smile. Ransom squeezes his hand, and Kent makes a hiccupping noise at the contact, swaying sideways until their foreheads press together. And then, because it can’t be avoided, he forces himself to sit up look at Jack. “Hey, Zimms.”

“What happened?” says Jack, his voice as thick as Kent has ever heard it.

Kent looks away, staring hard at the dent Kit left on his counterpane. “I made a mistake,” he says, hating that he doesn’t have the energy to make a joke of it, hating how raw and thin the words come out. “I thought – I thought that if I asked for what I wanted, he’d understand. But he didn’t. He just… did this instead.” He lets his mouth twist, shrugging as viciously as his protesting muscles will allow. The old bruise on his cheek is now overlapped by a black eye and set off by a cut on his lip; his head is swollen and cut where he cracked it against the edge of Matt’s kitchen table, shoulders strained from the torsion of fighting a grown man’s hold on him, arms and ribs likewise mottled and scratched where he fought his way free and into Matt’s bathroom, which locked from the inside, kept him safe.  

“ _Crisse_ ,” Jack says, and grips the bed so hard that his knuckles turn white.

“Oh, honey,” Bitty says, and Kent would hate the softness of his tone if not for the sparking fury in his eyes.

“Tell me you fucked him up for this,” says Holster, looking pointedly at Swoops, whose normally calm features shift to display a certain dark satisfaction.

“Dislocated shoulder, bruised windpipe on my end, and I’m pretty sure Ranno kicked him hard enough in the junk to qualify for medical intervention.”

Kent snorts at that, then instantly wishes he hadn’t, wincing at the strain in his ribs. Without thinking, he lets himself lean sideways, resting his head on Ransom’s shoulder. He flinches when he realises what he’s done, trying to lift away before Rans can shove him off, but instead an arm curls warmly around him, encouraging him to rest. Kent shuts his eyes as his heart does something complicated in place of its usual rhythm, skin breaking out in goosebumps as Ransom’s lips brush his forehead. He takes a steadying breath, then another, and when he opens his eyes again, it’s not a dream: everyone is still there, and Jack looks like he wants to speak.

“I’m sorry,” Kent blurts out, getting in ahead of him. “For what I said at the Haus, I shouldn’t – I shouldn’t have said that. Especially not about your dad.”

“Why did you, then?” Jack asks, shakily. He looks overwhelmed, and part of Kent doesn’t miss how Bitty slides that little bit closer to him, lending silent strength. That might’ve made him jealous, once, but right now, he doesn’t care. “I mean,” Jack says, awkwardly. “We don’t… we don’t have to do this now, Kenny, I just… I don’t understand. Anything, any of this. The how or why –” And then, in a choppy burst of words, “You were always untouchable to me, you know? You pushed me in so many ways and I never knew how to push back if we weren’t on the ice, and I figured that was my fault for not – not being experienced enough, or understanding feelings, or –” his ears are red, his jaw set, but he keeps on going, “– or not being what you really wanted. And then, afterwards, when I got out of rehab, you wouldn’t talk to me when I reached out –”

“ _Because I killed you_ ,” Kent rasps, cutting him off.

The words land in the room like gunshots: everyone goes still. Kent sits up, shoving away from Ransom, gripping his sheets in his fists as every old poison floods his mouth with grief. “Do you understand that, Zimms? I wanted you so much that I fucking _killed_ you, and I found you dead, I had to call an ambulance and your dad and our coach and I had to pretend like I hadn’t fucking murdered you, like I wasn’t the reason you’d topped yourself, and I couldn’t – I couldn’t tell _anyone_ , only then you started breathing again and I thought you’d tell, I thought you’d wake up and say that it was all my fault, and I hated how scared that made me, that you’d wake up and call me a murderer, but I didn’t care, I just wanted you not to be dead so I could say how sorry I was, but you wouldn’t – you wrote me _letters_ , Zimms, I’m fucking dyslexic and you wrote me _letters_ but you wouldn’t let me visit you in rehab, and I tried, I tried so hard to get in to see you –” he’s crying now; they both are, Jack like some religious icon, Kent like a fucking mess, “– I did, I did the worst things to try and see you, but it _still_ didn’t work, and I figured that you didn’t love me enough to want me there but you didn’t hate me enough to blame me, either, and I didn’t – I didn’t know how to be _nothing_ to you, Jack.” He swallows hard, refusing the sob in his throat. “Without hockey, I’m nothing. I’m nothing to _me_ , most days. But I couldn’t stand being that to you. So I thought, if you couldn’t love me, I should make you hate me instead. It’s what I do.”

Kent hangs his head, and silence falls like a curtain.

And then Jack says, in his smallest voice, “I never knew it was you who found me. Nobody ever said.”

Kent manages a broken laugh. “Would it have changed things, if you had?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” Jack heaves a shuddering breath, his blue eyes wet. “I’m sorry, Kenny. You always meant something me. I just didn’t understand what I was to you.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Kent whispers. “For pushing. You were always good to me, and I thought –” he forces himself to lift his head, to say the words, “– I thought that meant you didn’t care enough to make me feel it.”

Beside him, Ransom makes a low, wounded noise and puts his arm back around Kent’s shoulders. Kent leans into the contact, hands coming up to grab at Ransom, wanting him closer.

“Get in with me,” he mumbles, and Ransom obliges, toeing off his shoes and joining Kent under the covers, clothed, as Swoops swiftly ushers the other three out.

They curl together, Kent’s head tucked to Ransom’s chest. For several minutes, neither one of them speaks: the only sound is Ransom’s heartbeat, steady beneath Kent’s ear. Then:

“I can’t believe you flew to Vegas,” Kent says, the words half muffled in Ransom’s shirt.

“Neither can I,” says Rans, which somehow, impossibly, makes Kent laugh. “Holster organised it, Jack paid for the tickets, and Bitty tagged along for moral support. All I did was tell them where and when.”

“No, it’s not,” says Kent, and clings on just a little tighter. “You cared enough to make them care. You called Swoops for me. And you didn’t – I mean, you haven’t – you don’t hate me for going to him again.” He stills suddenly, realising Ransom hasn’t had much time to react to any of this. “You don’t, right?”

Ransom inhales, sharp and shaky, fingers combing gently through Kent’s hair. “I don’t hate you, baby. I just want you safe.”

“I am safe,” Kent says, “now.”

And for the first time in his adult life, he thinks it might be true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: non-graphic talk of past noncon, after the fact description of and allusions to attempted rape and physical violence, brief discussion of kink in the context of explaining it to someone who doesn't know what consent is.


	6. Ransom Again

They take it slow, which is a first for Kent; as is the novelty of having teammates – and, he’s starting to realise, friends – who know he’s into guys. Or guy, rather: he’s feeling enough like himself to slip back into his usual snarky façade, but even if he wanted to play it cool about Ransom, he’s utterly incapable of doing so. Given the clusterfuck of what happened with Matt, the Aces have been pretty generous in their bestowal of a grace period before starting to chirp him and issue fines for pet name use – and, in Ranno’s words, “blatant cow eyes whenever you open your fucking phone, Parser, you have _zero chill_ ” – but given the smirks he’s starting to get whenever he shows up to training, he suspects it’s at an end.

Weirdly, the fact that it’s a long distance relationship somehow makes things easier. Having someone at all is still so new for Kent that if he was expected to meet up with Ransom every other night for drinks or sex or whatever, he suspects he’d freak out and fuck it up, but making time to text and Skype and do phone TV is much more manageable. The prospect of phone sex is brought up exactly once: Kent tries to make himself agree to it, if only because he feels that Ransom deserves something good for putting up with the rest of him, but the idea of being dirty talked without any physical contact leaves him with knots in his stomach. It doesn’t quite trigger a panic attack, but Ransom spends the next twenty minutes quietly reassuring him that _it’s okay, baby, I don’t want anything you don’t want, I like talking to you and hanging out just fine_ , and Kent isn’t quite sure he believes it yet, not fully, but he’s trying hard to trust that he’s enough; that he deserves good things.

He texts with Jack now, too. And Bitty, and Holster. Which kind of makes him feel like Hermione Granger getting friends after being attacked by a mountain troll: apparently, there really are things you can’t help but come out the other side of with more people in your corner than when you started, and surviving an assault by a violent scumbag is evidently one of them.

Matt pleads guilty on all charges; the case never goes to trial, and the media doesn’t give the whole thing more than cursory attention. It feels like a fragile sort of peace, to Kent – more than once, he’s woken up in a cold sweat at the prospect of some drama-hungry pap digging up the truth – but most days, it’s a mental bear he’s able not to poke.

And then, two months into Kent and Ransom being an actual thing, Kent splurges on tickets to fly his boyfriend out to spend the long weekend with him in Vegas. The Aces chirp him mercilessly in the preceding week and a half, and Kent ends up paying nearly two hundred bucks in locker room fines because he can’t stop talking about how Ransom’s coming to visit, with – according to every single one of his asshole teammates – “a dopey look on your goddamn face” whenever he says Ransom’s name. Kent flips them all off and pays without comment, and is still so fucking nervous about picking Ransom up at the airport that he takes a toothbrush and toothpaste with him in case he throws up on the way. (He doesn’t, but it’s a close call.)

Ransom steps through the gate wearing dark red shorts, a pink polo shirt and a smile that makes Kent forget he hates himself. It’s Vegas, so Kent is peripherally aware of at least two strangers with their phones out at the sight of him, but in that moment he doesn’t give a shit: just beams what is probably the happiest, most nervous, least chill smile in the universe and steps into Ransom’s open arms for a hug.

“Hey there,” murmurs Ransom, in a voice that’s two parts grin to one part shake, his chin resting briefly on Kent’s head.

“Shut up,” Kent mutters, blushing into his shirt. “I missed you, you asshole.”

“Of course you did,” says Ransom. “I’m very missable.” And then, more quietly, his big hands warm against Kent’s back as he dips to speak into Kent’s ear, “I missed you, too.”

When they pull apart, it takes all of Kent’s willpower not to slip his arm through Ransom’s and walk that way through the terminal, the impulse so strong he’s actually shocked by it.

“So,” he says instead, feigning nonchalance, “is Holster currently undergoing separation anxiety, or has he imprinted on Bitty instead?”

Ransom laughs. “Last I saw, he was getting into a pretty heated argument with Dex and Nursey over _30 Rock_ , which is basically his happy place. He’s good for a day at _least_.”

Haus and hockey gossip carries them all the way to the car, where Ransom courteously makes no mention of how fucking long it takes Kent to buckle his seatbelt, but then makes up for it by chirping the hell out of his music choices once his iPod comes on.

“ _One Direction_ , K? That is, like, feelings-popcorn for the emotionally malnourished, which I _guess_ is you –”

“Shut your beautiful mouth,” says Kent, grinning uncontrollably.

“– but if you’re gonna go down that route, you might as well – oh, wait, my bad. You’ve already got some Adele on here, too.”

“Listen,” says Kent, “I, unlike you, am secure enough in my total fucking gayness to accept my love of One Direction for what it is, which is about 30% musical and 70% a desire for Louis and Zayn to do terrible, wonderful things to me. Deal with it.”

Ransom’s expression goes briefly glazed. “Zayn Malik is an ethereal beauty whose physical form I am not worthy to look upon.”

Kent takes a hand off the wheel for long enough to smack him in the chest. “And what am I then, huh? Just some random guy?”

“ _You_ ,” says Ransom, not missing a beat, “are totally fucking hot.”

“Well,” says Kent, lips twitching in a way that spoils his show of being mollified. “That’s all right, then.”

It’s so easy, talking to Ransom: as easy in person as on the phone, but a thousand times more thrilling for the added possibilities. It shocks Kent to realise that they haven’t even kissed yet, not really: everything was so fucked up last time that Ransom didn’t do more than hold him, occasionally kissing his cheek or temple but staying otherwise chaste. Kent spends ten full seconds worrying that they’re going to disappoint each other in bed, that Kent’s going to fuck it up somehow, but snaps out of it when Ransom, who’s clearly a goddamn Jedi, squeezes his knee and says, “You know I’m crazy about you, right? If all you wanna do this weekend is play video games and watch Netflix, I’m down.”

Kent swallows, summoning the courage to meet Ransom’s gaze. “And if I want to spend it doing more than that?”

“Then I’m down with that, too,” says Ransom, somewhat breathlessly.

They reach home not long afterwards, and the whole way from the garage to the apartment itself, Kent feels the tension ratchet up like a physical thing. Ransom’s one piece of luggage, a wheeled carry-on case, squeaks loudly as he pulls it into the hall, and then the door’s shut, they’re both alone, and Kent feels simultaneously smaller and stronger than he ever has in his life. He kicks off his sandals, prompting Ransom to copy him, toeing out of his boat shoes without ever bending down.

Behind them, the front door shuts of its own accord, reaching the end of its long, lazy swing, and Ransom lets go of the luggage handle, staring at Kent with undisguised want.

“Your move, K,” he says. “Whatever you –”

Kent grabs him by the shirt and cuts him off with a kiss. It’s awkward for all of a half a second; then Ransom groans and kisses back, hands finding Kent’s hips as he presses him up against the wall. Kent isn’t short, but he’s shorter than Ransom, built narrow and lean where Rans is broad and well-defined, and Kent’s been doing a fuckload of thinking these past two months about what he actually likes in bed, trying to sort through all the internalised bullshit and age-old hangups, but in that moment, he’s crystal clear on the fact that he likes to be manhandled. Not hurt, not hit – he knows they aren’t all synonyms, now – but held down a little, moved by someone bigger and stronger who uses that strength with gentleness.

“This okay?” pants Ransom, hands coming up to cup Kent’s face.

Kent makes a dazed, wanting noise as one of Ransom’s thumbs swipes over his bottom lip. “You really need to ask?”

“I really do, baby.”

For an answer, Kent sucks Ransom’s thumb into his mouth, heat shooting through him at the noise Rans makes in response.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Ransom breathes, sliding his hand into Kent’s hair as he kisses him, deep and needy. Kent arches into it like a cat, and suddenly he’s being lifted, hands beneath his thighs as Ransom pins him effortlessly against the wall. Kent locks his ankles and clings on, shameless as he twines his arms around Ransom’s neck and _grinds_. It’s taken them damn near six months to get to this point, and he doesn’t intend to waste the opportunity. Ransom sucks on his bottom lip and pulls back just far enough to brush their noses together.

“Take me to bed?” Kent says, and flushes all over at how small and needy it comes out sounding; at the fact that he can’t help but make it a question even now.

“Okay,” says Ransom, warm and gentle, and Kent expects to be put down at this point, only it doesn’t happen, because Ransom just steps away from the wall and _carries him there_ , Kent clinging on as his breathing hitches. Shit, he knew Ransom was strong, but _this_ –   

He half expects to be tossed on the bed, but Ransom just sits him on the mattress, going to his knees as he reaches for the hem of Kent’s shirt. Kent stares at him, lips parted, as Ransom pulls it over his head and sets it aside, fingers skimming down to tug at his shorts. Kent makes a whimpering sound and braces his palms on the mattress, lifting his hips for Ransom to pull them all the way off – which he does, and his briefs along with them, leaving Kent naked and splayed on the bed. Breathless now, he watches as Ransom stands and shucks his own clothes with a mixture of efficiency and teasing; Kent drinks in the sight of him, salivating slightly at the perfect cut of his hips, the prominent Adonis belt, and moves back up the bed, legs parting to make room for Rans between them.

“Look at you,” says Ransom, reverent and soft. He moves in fast, arms bracketing Kent’s head as he slots their bodies together, so perfectly controlled with it that the mattress barely shakes. He kisses the corner of Kent’s mouth and ruts against him, a long, luxurious drag that end with both of them hard and Kent trembling. “What do you want, baby?”

“Show me,” says Kent. He cups a hand around Ransom’s neck and squeezes gently, pulling their foreheads together. “Show me what I’ve been missing.”

For an answer, Ransom lifts Kent’s hand and moves it up the bed, shifting to grab the other one and hold it there, too, so that both of Kent’s wrists are pinned by Ransom’s right hand. Kent whines in his throat, flexing against the hold, and shudders powerfully at how good it feels. They haven’t been doing phone sex, sure, but he’s talked a lot to Ransom about what he thinks he likes and doesn’t, trying to tease it all out, and Ransom, evidently, has been listening.

“I do anything you don’t like,” says Ransom, holding Kent’s gaze, “you tell me, right?”

“I will,” Kent gasps. The words are huge in his mouth, momentous with how much he means them. “I will, I promise.”

“I know,” says Ransom, and kisses him again. “I trust you, K.”

And then he squeezes Kent’s wrists and starts to work him over.

Once upon a time, Kent thought he didn’t like slow in bed. He’d get antsy whenever anyone tried it, bucking and goading and bratting his way into faster (and usually rougher) treatment. But as Ransom steadily decimates him, kissing and stroking and sucking, the last lingering skerrick of Kent’s higher brain functioning realises this isn’t true: that what he _actually_ doesn’t like is hesitance from his partner and uncertainty in himself. But Ransom knows exactly what the fuck he’s doing, which means that Kent can’t think straight enough to worry it’s going to go wrong, and it’s good, it’s _so fucking good_ he thinks his heart might actually beat its way out of his body.

When Rans finally stops teasing and swallows him down, Kent is damn near incoherent. His hands are free by then, and he ends up cradling Ransom’s head, bucking against the hold Ransom has on his hips. His tongue is wicked and talented and Kent can’t actually remember the last time anyone went down on him, but even if he could, he’s pretty sure it wasn’t like this; it’s never been like this before. And then, at no discernible signal, Ransom pulls off and surges up his body to kiss him, deep and hot and filthy in a way that leaves Kent grabbing his shoulders, scrabbling at the muscle with a desire to prove _I was here, I had this, I’m his_.

“Fuck me,” he says, intending a challenge and managing a plea. “Fuck me, god, Rans –”

“I will,” says Ransom, leaning in to nip at Kent’s earlobe. “I will, baby. But I gotta open you up first, eh?”

That tiny Canadianism makes Kent laugh, a breathless sound as he rolls himself over onto his stomach, arching up to put his ass on display. “Do it, then,” he says, in full expectation that Ransom will ask him where the lube is.

Instead, Ransom hooks his arms under Kent’s thighs, leans down, and starts to eat him out.

The noise Kent makes in response to feeling Ransom’s tongue on him is loud enough that, from the next room, he hears the telltale crash and scuttle of a startled Kit Purrson falling out of her cat tree. He laughs at that, too, or tries to; the sound stretches into a moan as Ransom spreads him open, and oh, Christ, this is not a thing that anyone has ever done for Kent before, it’s not a thing he ever really considered, and apparently that’s a tragedy on par with the destruction of the library of Alexandria because he’s a grown adult, he could’ve been asking for this for _years_ , oh _god_ –

“Why,” he pants out, “why the fuck does this feel so good?”

Ransom chuckles, the vibrations of his laughter making Kent squirm in the very best way. “Because I’m good at it?”

“Oh,” says Kent, faintly. He lets his head flop sideways to indicate the bedside table. “Lube’s over there, whenever you’re – whenev – _fuuuuuuuck_.”

Ransom laughs and keeps going.

By the time Rans reaches for the lube, Kent is a mess. He’s gasping and shaking, face pressed into the pillow as Ransom slips two long, slim fingers into him, shuddering at the slide. His dick is wetter than it’s ever been without the benefit of an actual orgasm, tacky precome smeared across his stomach, and once Ransom works him up to three fingers – which doesn’t take long, given what they’ve already been doing – it’s all he can do to choke out, “I’m ready, please, _Rans_ –”

So gently, Ransom rolls him over, expertly slipping a cushion under his hips. Kent makes a hiccupping noise at the sight of him, and Ransom’s eyes go wide in response. He leans in, cradling Kent’s face, thumbs stroking urgently across his cheeks, beneath his eyes, and it’s only then that Kent realises he’s crying.

“You okay, baby?” Ransom whispers, kissing his temple. “Shit, I didn’t know, I’m sorry –”

“Don’t,” says Kent, finding strength enough to grab Ransom’s hand. He pulls it to his mouth, kissing the skin of his wrist, and smiles with a fullness he’s not sure he’s ever felt before. “I want you. I want _this_.”

Ransom hesitates. “And you still – like we talked about, you still –?”

“Yeah,” breathes Kent, who’d somehow managed to put that particular detail out of mind until just now, and grips Ransom a little bit harder with the realisation that he gets to have it. In the wake of everything that happened, Kent had decided he might as well get himself tested, and Ransom, in a show of solidarity, had offered to do likewise, which led to Kent making him a separate offer altogether. “Please.”

Ransom’s smile is bright and wicked. “Anything for you,” he says, and lines himself up with Kent, one hand splayed possessively on the underside of his right thigh, and slides in bare.

Kent’s never done this before, either.

Ransom groans, his free hand running through Kent’s hair as he hefts his thigh with the other. Kent twines his unsupported leg around Ransom’s waist and pushes into the stroke, his own hands moving back to grab the headboard.

“Keep ‘em there,” Ransom pants, and Kent nods wildly, breathing too loud and too fast and embarrassingly close already. Ransom’s dick is definitely proportional to the rest of him, and as he starts up a rhythm, Kent tips his head back and loses himself to the feeling of it, overwhelmed and slick and full. Ransom’s fingers feather through his hair, gripping in a way that has Kent baring his throat.

“Justin,” he gasps, “Justin, Rans – _Ransom_ , I – _fuck_ –”

“So good for me,” Ransom says, leaning in to suck a hickey on Kent’s throat, all teeth and pressure and just the right side of painful. Kent feels like he’s shaking apart; he’s so close to coming even though neither one of them is touching his cock, and then Ransom shifts his angle slightly, jogs Kent’s leg as he readjusts, fucking into him deep and smooth and unbelievably perfect. Five strokes later, Kent Parson becomes the first practising atheist to see god: his entire body locks up as he comes untouched, a noise ripping out of his throat that’s somewhere between a sob and a shout.

“Jesus Christ,” says Ransom, eyes blown wide as he fucks him through it. Kent watches, shuddering and sensate, as Ransom pulls out, puts a hand to himself and comes within moments, adding to the mess of white on Kent’s stomach. It’s only then that Kent remembers to let go of the headboard, fingers cramping slightly as he grabs for Ransom and pulls him close.

They collapse together, rolling sideways, messy and spent and shaking. Ransom wraps Kent in his arms and tangles their legs together, Kent still breathing harshly as he presses his mouth to Ransom’s salt-slick collarbone.

A small eternity passes, or possibly just minutes.

“So,” Kent finally rasps, in a voice approximating his normal one, “that’s what I’ve been missing out on, huh?”

“No,” says Ransom, pulling back to look at him, a private smile playing on his lips. “That’s what _we’ve_ been missing out on.” And then, more softly, “You’re fucking incredible, you know that?”

Kent laughs and kisses his neck, a lightness in his chest. “Takes one to know one,” he says. “Now let’s get in the fucking shower.”

“Sure,” says Ransom, grinning. “Whatever you want.”


End file.
